


proelium

by skuls



Series: Post Season 11 Universe [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV, i hate the finale but here is my attempt to make it better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 05:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Post finale: Mulder and Scully connect with their son in an unconventional way.





	proelium

**Author's Note:**

> warning for mentions of the CSM as william's father plotline (although only in the context of its debunking) and the pregnancy storyline presented in the finale. 
> 
> this story is more or less my attempts at resolving the things that upset me in the finale, and an attempt to leave mulder and scully in a better place than CC did. i also wanted to write a mulder-scully-william reunion that fit with s11's characterization of william/jackson.

She's in shock.

That's the only explanation for it. She's in shock. She can't explain the things she said, the words spilling out of her mouth. She can't get warm. She's shaking, arms wrapped tightly around herself, huddled under the quilts. She feels so nauseous.

Mulder is lying on his side beside him, tear tracks shining on his face. He's in shock, too, she thinks. He has to be. He killed his own father just a few moments after seeing his son get shot. His son. Scully wipes cold tears off of her face. This isn't fair, she wants to shout, none of it. It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

She sniffles and buries her face in the side of the pillow. She can't stop seeing her baby with a bullet in his head. She can't believe the things she said on that dock. That he wasn't their son, that he was an experiment and she was never his mother. The words didn't feel like they were coming out of her mouth. The shock of the things Skinner told her and William asking her to let him go and Mulder telling her that he was dead. She didn't know what she was saying. She didn't want to tell Mulder about the baby this way.

She's been having flashes since they left the dock. The cold water, a piercing pain in her forehead, the side of a highway in the cold. She doesn't know what it could be, besides William. She doesn't want to let herself get her hopes up.

The roar of cars echoing in her ears, the sound of wet shoes squelching on the pavement. She closes her eyes and crawls closer to the warm mass of Mulder's body. He's tense and rigid, but when she burrows under the tent of his arm, he doesn't pull away. She presses her nose into his side and whispers, “Mulder.”

He grunts in response, his eyes closed with pain.

She presses a hand to his chest, swallows back her tears. Says, “Mulder, I think William is alive.”

He opens his eyes, dark and wet, and looks down at her. “You can see him?” he whispers tremulously. She nods.

He wraps both arms around her, bundling her up against him. She rests her cheek against his chest. “How?” he says into her hair. “How could he…”

“I don't know. I don't know,” she says. “I just… I can feel him. He's safe.”

Mulder takes a shaky breath, stroking the back of her head. “Thank God,” he whispers, quivering against her. “Thank _God_.”

She feels a rush of guilt for everything she said to him. He is the one who met their son, who hugged him, who saw him twice with a bullet in his head. He is the one who never got to be with him as a baby, who didn't get to hear that his son wants to know him better. He has to be William's father. He has to be. She did a test when William was a baby, but she knows she is going to do another one as soon as she gets a chance. She didn't mean what she said. She was in shock. She didn't mean it. She feels like she is going to throw up. She already threw up, in the bathroom earlier, and she doesn't think it's because of the baby. She heard the gunshots Mulder fired into the smoker's chest, every single one.

She isn't going to tell Mulder what Skinner said, but she needs to apologize. She needs to tell him she didn't mean what she said.

“Mulder, I didn't mean what I said,” she says, and his arms go stiff around her. She sniffles, burying her head in his neck. “I didn't,” she murmurs, balling a hand in his shirt. “I was scared. I was in shock. I didn't mean it, Mulder. He's our son. He'll always be our son.” She has to believe that, she _has_ to.

His fingers brush over his spine. “Are you saying this because you know he's alive now?” he asks quietly.

She shakes her head, frantic, digging her fingers into his shoulder. “No,” she says. “No, Mulder, no, he's our son. For God's sake, he's our _son._ He's our son.” She's crying again, near hiccupping, clinging to him like he's a life raft. “He's _my_ son,” she whisper hollowly. “He's my baby, and I just… he asked us to let him go. I didn't know what to do.”

“Shhh,” Mulder is saying, his voice trembling. He's stroking her hair again, her back, her neck. “Shhhh, Scully, it's okay. It's okay.”

“I'm his mother,” she says, and she remembers the cold feeling of fear, of surprise, of uncertainty when she took the pregnancy test and saw the results. Of guilt, even. She doesn't know how to do this again and it scares the shit out of her.

Mulder is crying, too, his tears sliding into her hair. He clings to her and she clings to him and they cry. She holds onto the image of William walking in the rain, huddling for warmth under a bridge. _I'm here,_ she thinks towards her son as she starts to drift off. _I'll always be here if you need me._

\---

A few days later, they go to the doctor for a confirmation of the pregnancy. They both need to know for sure. They need to know if everything is okay. What the risks are, what they need to know.

Scully finds a friend and asks her to run William's DNA against Mulder's. She has to know, she has to know for sure. She cried about it in the bathroom last night, horrible, wretching sobs under the pound of the shower spray that she told Mulder was about their son almost dying. She hasn't told him, and she won't if she doesn't need to. The entire idea makes her nauseous, makes her want to find the smoker’s corpse and put ten more bullets in his skull. It can't be true. It can't be true. It isn't true, not until it's proven. She's refused to believe in so much, and she will refuse to believe in this until it is anything more than a rumor.

She makes the request, spends the next few minutes in a bathroom, forehead pressed into the metal of the stall, breathing. She goes downstairs to find out if she is going to be a mother again.

The pregnancy is confirmed. She's a couple months along, the doctor says. Scully is left with a dizzy uncertainness as soon as the words leave her mouth. It's true. It's really true, and she's terrified, and she think she might lose it if it weren't for Mulder right there by her side. She lowers a hand to her belly and covers the spot where the baby is growing. She cannot believe the events of these past few days. None of it feels real.

She's had a total of two pregnancy scares after William, and she remembers them both: one terrified in a dirty gas-station bathroom, one horribly sad in their house in 2009. Both had turned out to be nothing. And after she left him, she had thought it was over. After they'd gotten back together, she hadn't worried about it. _We're too old to have a baby,_ she told herself, _the first time was a miracle, it isn't going to happen again…_

Mulder kisses the top of her head, his hand moving down to cover hers on her stomach. She sniffles, leaning back into his chest. “I don't know if I can do this again, Mulder,” she whispers. “How can we do this? It's too risky at our age, it's too risky for the baby… And how can we protect another child? How can we answer all the questions they'll have about their life, their parents, their brother…” Her voice cracks on the word _brother_ , her chin trembling.

“I know,” he whispers, his voice wavering. “I know, Scully.” He puts his other hand over her stomach.

She thinks of all the times she did this alone and sniffles. They're having a baby and he's here, he's really here. “Do you think we can do this?” she asks, and he nods, kissing her head again. His hands are warm on her stomach. She nestles against him because she doesn't know what else to do. He's her rock, her touchstone.

After it's over, Mulder goes down a floor to check on Skinner. Scully goes and finds her friend to get the results of the test. It's good news, utterly relieving news. She nearly sobs with the relief of it all, crumples the results in her hand, trembling from head to toe. It's not true. It was a lie, a horrible lie, but William is their son.

When they leave the hospital, she hugs Mulder hard, kisses him thankfully and doesn't tell him why. She is nearly shaking with the weight of it all. She curses the smoker in his watery grave, but she feels a little lighter now, the weight of Skinner's confession off of her shoulders. It is not true. It is not true. William is theirs, and Mulder will never know there was another possibility.

\---

Nearly a month after the whole ordeal is over, there's a knock at the door on a Saturday. Scully is a little surprised—they almost never get visitors out here—but she puts down her book and goes to answer it just the same. When she opens the door, her heart freezes in her chest.

Her son is standing on the front stoop, in a soaking wet hoodie, his hair a hacked, tousled mess that suggests he's been cutting it himself. His hands are in his pocket, and he doesn't remove them as he offers her an awkward shrug. There is a bullet scar under a hank of ragged hair.

“Hi, um,” says Jackson. “Dana. Hi.”

Scully can't breathe. She steps forward and throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly in a way that must be crushing to his ribs. Her son is here, and she hasn't held him since he was a baby. He's _alive_.

Jackson laughs a little awkwardly, too skinny in her embrace. He makes no move to hug her back. “You and that Mulder guy… you sure like to hug,” he says.

Scully doesn't let go. She's thinking of him as a baby, tiny and balanced on her hip, tugging on her hair with a soggy fist. He's grown so much since then. Tears well in her eyes. She blames the pregnancy hormones.

Feet are pounding the floor behind them. A choked sound that might be their son's name, and then Mulder is wrapping his arms around them both fiercely.

Jackson is still standing awkwardly in the circle of their arms. “I, uh,” he says. “I'm okay, you know. I'm fine. I promise.”

Scully, sensing how uncomfortable he is, is the first to let go. Mulder steps back with her, his hand on her shoulder the way it was when they watched the tape. Scully clears her throat, wiping her eyes. “You're… you're okay?” she says carefully. “William… Jackson—”

“I'm okay,” Jackson repeats, tousling his hands through his hair. “I healed.”

“I saw you… get shot,” Mulder says cautiously.

Jackson shrugs again. “I dunno what to say.”

Scully clears her throat again, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Do you… do you want to come in?”

“That'd be great,” he says. “I've been sleeping outside for two weeks.”

They step aside and Jackson comes inside. He's looking awkwardly between them, his hands back in his pockets. “I, uh,” he says. “I came here because I wanted you to know I was all right.” Mulder's hand tightens on her shoulder; her stomach is flipping. But he isn't finished talking. “And I had a favor to ask of you,” he adds.

Mulder's hand loosens on her shoulder. Scully blinks. “A favor?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Jackson grins sheepishly. “Things have slowed down a lot since last month, and no one's really chasing me anymore. And so, uh, I'm gonna get a job in Richmond. I want to be close to Sarah, but her parents don't like me, so I can't live in Norfolk. So I'm gonna get a job and an apartment in Richmond, and I'll see her when she takes the bus on the weekends to her music lessons. But see, uh, I have to put a security deposit down on the place I want to rent. And I don't have enough money…”

“So you want us to help you with the security deposit,” Scully says. She feels some cold rush of understanding. She never thought they would skip so many steps with him, go from knowing him as a baby straight to a teenager asking for favors.

Jackson chews his lower lip, and for a moment, he looks just like his father. “Yeah,” he says. “If that's okay.”

Mulder's hand lowers from her shoulder. He hasn't said a thing. She's going back and forth on what it is she's going to say.

“Richmond isn't far from here,” Jackson adds. “We could… see each other every now and then. Remember I said, I want to know you better?”

Scully swallows uncomfortably. It's one of the most manipulative things she's ever heard. But some part of her is still pleading, begging for a connection. And besides that, after everything he has gone through because of her, doesn't she owe him at least this? He doesn't need to be stifled, it isn't what he wants, and if this is the only way, he’ll take it.

“Okay,” she says.

\---

They actually do it, they drive him down to Richmond and put down a security deposit on a tiny place near the grocery store where Jackson has a job. Scully offers him some of the furniture that survived the apartment at her old house. The couch smells a little like smoke, but Jackson doesn't seem to care. Mulder buys him a couple of snowglobes from DC for the new place, and offers them to Jackson with all the tentativity of a nervous parent. “I saw all the ones in… your old room,” he says. “Hey, we might could get some of your stuff from your house out of evidence. If you want.”

“I kinda want to leave all that behind,” Jackson says awkwardly, his eyes shifting to the floor. Scully had found one of the books in his backpack on the floor, earlier, and when she'd picked it up, a flurry of smudged photographs fell to the floor. Pictures of the Van de Kamps. Of his parents. She can't imagine what it was like to lose his parents like that.

“But I do like snowglobes,” he adds, taking the souvenir bag from Mulder. “Thanks.” He offers what looks like a genuine smile. Mulder smiles back.

They lie about his age, say he's eighteen. Jackson signs the lease _William Johnson_ and her chest aches a little. The name she gave him used as an alias, to hide from the men who ruined his birth family. His name.

Scully feels like they're trying too hard, but she almost doesn't care. They can be the fun birth parents for a day. They buy him dinner at the Thai place down the street, and it is as awkward as the drive down, but it is almost worth it. They sit together in the booth across from him. Jackson eats ravenously, and Scully's heart hurts a little, what with everything that's happened. She hates that he's had to live on his own for so long.

“So,” she says at one point, just after his fork scrapes shrilly across the plate. “Jackson. I guess we owe you an explanation for…”

“Everything that's happened,” Mulder adds. His hand comes down on her knee. “Why you were put up for adoption.”

“I already kind of know why,” Jackson says with his mouth full. He swallows and wipes his mouth. “I heard what you said in the morgue, remember?”

Scully clears her throat uncomfortably. She keeps forgetting he heard that. _He knows you love him,_ he had said to her with Mulder’s voice, but she still doesn't know how. She feels like she has to tell him, reassure him. She gave him up. She feels nearly overly conscious of the baby, guilt curdling inside.

Jackson takes another bite, another. “You did it to keep me safe,” he says, taking a gulp of soda. “Right?”

“Yes,” says Scully. Her throat hurts. Her hand touches her stomach briefly under the table; her neck is hot with embarrassment. “I didn't think I could keep you safe, and I… I wanted to give you a better life.” Mulder squeezes her knee under the table, and she thanks him silently.

Jackson nods. His face is strange, like he's deep in contemplation.

“We just wanted you to be okay,” Mulder adds, as if he had any part in that decision. As if she hadn't noticed how much he once resented her for it, how much he tried to hide it.

“I was,” Jackson says to his plate. He licks some sauce off of his fork. “I mean, I wasn't… great. But I had good parents.”

Scully swallows. Her cheeks are hot now. “I'm so glad,” she says. “I'm so sorry for what happened to them.”

Jackson sets the fork down and drains his glass in one gulp. “Yeah, me too,” he says. And that is the end of that.

Scully pays for the meal without a word. Jackson doesn't bother trying to argue, but he does say thank you. _Good manners,_ she notes, and then feels guilty. They say their goodbyes outside of the restaurant, Jackson fiddling with the burner phone she assumes he stole. “Do us a favor,” Mulder says suddenly, “and call us every now and then? Let us know you're okay.”

Jackson nods, his eyes straying up the street with distraction. He wants to leave. “I will,” he says. And then he's gone, ambling up the street with a sort of carefreeness. Like spending time with them was some kind of chore. He looks smaller than he ever has in the time since he's come back into their lives.

Still, Scully finds herself unable to be too upset. Their son is communicating with them, not running away, not hiding. Even if he is using them to get an apartment, he seeked them out. He promised to call them. She cannot begrudge him too much.

\---

She thinks of William the first time the new baby kicks.

The first time William kicked had been the night before Mulder’s funeral. She'd been crumpled in the corner of the couch, trying to think of what she could do next (how she was going to keep on without him), and then she felt it, the little flutter inside of her. She'd dismissed it at first until she felt it again and again. She ended up crying, almost as hard as the night she found Mulder dead, her hand pressed to her stomach as if she could tether herself to the baby, make him feel her presence. That was the first time in a long time that she hadn't felt alone.

It is different now. She is older and this pregnancy comes with a combination of guilt, fear, and excitement. And Mulder is there. His eyes light up as he leans over to her, presses his hand to her stomach and lets her guide it to the spot. He won't stop talking about it all night. He likes to talk to the baby, read aloud from conspiracy articles or ghost stories. Scully can't stop smiling. It's the happiest she's felt about the baby.

The guilt is still there, in a biting layer underneath the joy, but she tries to tell herself it's not that simple. Tells herself that her son is safe, she knows that now, and she doesn't need to feel guilty for enjoying this as much as possible. That they should try to enjoy it, because her therapist has told her that it's not good to be in constant worry and that she needs to try and find the happiness in it. She lets herself smile. She tells the baby a story about Mulder and his Bigfoot pursuits.

Two days later, William calls them. They never got his number, for some reason, and his voice is a surprise when Scully picks up—cautiously, because Mulder is paranoid about unfamiliar numbers, especially after Tad O’Malley’s television exposure. Jackson's voice crackling over the line is a surprise to her. “Hello? Is this Dana? Or Mulder?”

Scully, who hasn't gotten very many visions at all from Jackson since they moved him into Richmond, nearly gasps out loud at the voice. “Jackson,” she says, putting the phone on speaker and motioning Mulder over. “It's Dana. I have Mulder here with me. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, a little grumpily, like they should know what's happening. “You said to call you and let you know that I was okay. Remember?”

“We remember, Jackson,” Mulder says, with just a touch of wonder in his voice. He steps close to her, their shoulders touching, and leans close to the phone. “So are you okay? How are you?”

“I'm fine,” he says. Something in his voice reminds Scully of Charlie, her rebellious, lost-in-his-head brother, or don't-give-a-shit Mulder when she'd first met him. She smiles a little. “Work's a lot, sometimes, but Sarah comes up every weekend.”

Scully's smile thins a bit; she isn't sure how she feels about her son's player activities. She wonders what happened to Brianna. “That's good,” Mulder offers.

“Right. Oh, and um.” There is something like laughter in Jackson's voice, like he is smirking. “I kind of Googled you guys.”

Scully laughs out loud, surprising herself. Mulder chuckles, too, in a surprised sort of way. “There's, uh,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “There's a lot to unpack there.”

 _That's putting it mildly,_ Scully thinks.

“No kidding,” Jackson says. “I shoulda guessed you guys were into all that supernatural shit after… what happened back home… but I figured you'd just gotten my visions.”

“I did,” says Scully quietly. Jackson doesn't reply right away, and she's worried she has said something wrong.

Mulder stumbles to fill the silence. “So what is it that you found online?”

“Aside from some stuff from that conservative asshole Tad O'Malley? Some news articles about some monsters. It said you were involved with the exposure of some organ harvesting cult. And, um. Some other urban legend stuff.”

“Sounds about right,” says Mulder, laughing a little. Scully reaches for his hand and he takes it.

“Well, I've gotta go,” Jackson says abruptly, surprising them both. “I've got work in an hour. I just wanted to call and say hi. Dana, I like that couch you gave me. It's nice.”

Scully bites her lower lip. He should be living at home, she thinks rebelliously, packing for college and getting ready for prom and eating all the food in the fridge. Not living in Richmond in an apartment, alone and vulnerable. What if the men who are chasing him come for him again? “I'm so glad,” she says out loud.

“Talk to you later,” Jackson says, and the phone clicks as he hangs up.

The phone lies dormant in Scully's hand. She doesn't want to let go of it. Talking to her son still feels so incredibly new; it feels wrong to be so casual. She feels like there should be more angry accusations on his part, more tearful explanations and apologies on theirs.

The baby kicks, bringing her back to reality. She lets her phone drop to the tabletop and leans her head on Mulder’s shoulder.

\---

A couple of weeks later, Jackson shows up in the middle of the night with no warning. It scared the shit out of both of them; they thought he was a burglar. When Mulder stumbles downstairs sleepily with his gun in hand, he finds only their son sprawled on the couch with messier hair and sheepish apologies prepared.

Mulder calls up the stairs to Scully to let her know that the burglar was just Jackson and everything is okay. When she comes down, she finds Mulder sitting on the couch, rubbing his eyes with annoyance, and Jackson in a chair eating a sloppily-made sandwich. His eyes bug out a little when he sees her (Scully expects because she is showing at this point; she's gotten some similar looks at the Bureau), but he says nothing in reference to it. He opts to take a large bite of the sandwich, which looks about as disgusting as she would expect a sandwich made by Mulder's son to be.

“What are you doing here, Jackson?” Scully asks with all the sternness she expects she would have if he was a normal teenager sneaking in. (She expects this is somewhere in the future for them, which is a head-spinning thought she doesn't actually want to deal with at the moment.) She doesn't actually care that they are trying to grow closer to their son at the moment because he busted into the house and almost gave them both a heart attack in the middle of the night, waking them up from a luxury that she knows will be sparse in about four months. “Why didn't you knock or call or… or something?”

“I had to leave fast and I left my phone,” Jackson says through a mouthful of food. He swallows, clarifies, “Sarah's parents showed up at the apartment—some tracker thing on her phone. I had to sneak out. They hate me.” The sandwich droops a little in his hand. “I think she's going to break up with me,” he adds, a little sadly. “She seemed pretty pissed.”

“That happens sometimes,” Mulder says with some annoyance, rubbing his eyes again.

Scully wants to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Instead, she says, “Do you want to sleep here tonight, Jackson?”

“That'd be great,” he says, wiping a spot of mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth. “Do you mind?”

“No, we don't mind.” Scully crosses her arms over her chest. “Although next time, call first.”

“Definitely call first,” Mulder adds, yawning. “Send a smoke signal or something.”

“Right.” Jackson rubs the back of his neck; he looks slightly cowed, embarrassed. “I guess I just figured I could sneak in without you knowing and catch a few winks. I used to do it all the time with Mom and Dad and I never got caught.”

“You forget, you're sneaking into the home of two federal agents,” says Mulder. “We're more attentive to people breaking in.”

“Sorry,” says Jackson.

Scully rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she says, trying to sound more good-natured. “I'll show you the guest room.”

She shows Jackson the guest room, right down the hall from their room and the designated baby's room. Daggoo likes to sleep in the guest room; he's licking his paws when they enter. He scrambles to his feet on top of the mattress and yips excitedly when they enter, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he pants.

“Who's this little guy?” Jackson asks eagerly. He extends his hand for Daggoo to sniff; he sniffs a couple of times before licking Jackson's fingers, searching for stray condiments.

“That's Daggoo,” says Scully. “Our dog. He usually sleeps in here, but I can take him out if you want.”

“No, that's cool.” Jackson is scratching the dog's back, grinning a little. “I love dogs, but my mom never let me have one. She was allergic.”

“I think he likes you,” Scully says, watching the dog sniff at Jackson, scrabble at his stomach with her paws. Jackson grins, scooping the dog up and letting him wriggle around in his arms.

Mulder taps the doorframe, sticking his head in. “You all settled? I'm headed back to bed.”

“I'm right behind you,” Scully says, because the baby likes to kick a lot in the middle of the night and she is already constantly exhausted. She never expected to be pregnant in her fifties. “You all settled, Jackson? There's plenty of food in the fridge.”

His eyes light up a little at that, cradling the dog like a baby. “Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks, Mo—Dana.”

Scully bites her lip hard enough to taste blood. By the way that Jackson's neck reddens and he ducks his face away from them, she can tell the slip-up was an accident, and one he didn't particularly intend on making. She smooths a hand over her stomach and the baby kicks furiously. “You're welcome,” she says quietly. “We'll be down the hall.”

Jackson is still playing with the dog when she closes the door.

Mulder wraps his arms around her when they get into bed, a hand gravitating towards her stomach. “I know it's hard,” he says softly. “You never know, he might be calling you that someday.” He rubs her stomach in a way that reminds her that someone will be calling her that every day someday, if everything goes well. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“I don't know, Mulder,” she says instead. She wraps her arms hard around his neck. “I doubt he'll even be there when we wake up tomorrow.”

But he is. The miraculous thing is that he is. When Scully goes downstairs in the morning, Jackson is sitting at the kitchen table, eating what looks like half a box of cereal and casting mournful looks at his phone. His eyes are red like he's been crying. Daggoo lies on the ground, his nose on his paws.

“Jackson? What's wrong?” Scully smooths a hand over his shoulder in an attempt at comfort.

Jackson looks up at her, his eyes dark and sad. “She broke up with me,” he says, trailing the spoon through the cornflakes-milky mess.

“Oh.” She feels a twinge of sympathy, even if she was disapproving of the two girlfriends in the first place. “I'm sorry, sweetie.” She sits across from him at the table, squeezing his shoulder again.

Jackson puts down the spoon and picks up the dog. Daggoo goes willingly, leaning into his chest and letting his tail thump against his stomach. “It's just like… everything from my old life is disappearing,” he says into the dog's fur. “You know?”

She squeezes his shoulder again, full of sympathy for her son who has lost so, so much. “I know.”

Jackson ruffles the dog's hair before loosening his hold on him and reaching for the spoon again. Scully picks the dog up and gives him a scratch before setting him down. Jackson takes a bite of cereal before mumbling, “Could I stay here this weekend?”

The baby kicks. Scully thinks of her son as a baby, feeding him at the table with the sunlight streaming in through the window while he giggled and clapped his hands. It's a little mind-blowing that her baby is _here,_ after years of being gone. She never wants him to leave. “Of course you can stay here,” she says. “Of course.”

\---

Jackson stays the weekend. It is awkward, but Mulder is overjoyed and Scully can't help but share the sentiment.

It's largely casual. Jackson steals two books from Mulder’s office, along with several X-Files. He peppers them both with questions about said cases, which only leaves Mulder happier. They watch a movie one night, with Mulder and Scully on the couch together and Jackson sprawled out on the rug, watching as he texts a contact that Scully can barely see but that looks like the name _Brianna._ He practically cleans out the fridge before the weekend is up. He is gone before they wake up Monday morning.

\---

Jackson remains largely in and out of their lives for the next few months. They go up and meet him in Richmond on occasion, he takes a bus down to Farrs Corner on occasion. There is no set schedule for whether or not they see him, but they have come to expect to hear from him once about every two weeks.

He shows up for Thanksgiving towards the end of the day, while Scully is napping through the football game. “Hi,” he says when Mulder opens the door, shivering on the doorstep in a too-thin hoodie as the cold breeze cuts through the air.

Mulder, who has gotten used to the sporadic appearances, just smiles. “Hi, Jackson,” he says. “Want to come in?”

He nods, coming into the living room. Mulder closes the door behind him. Jackson scrunches up in his hoodie, his fists balled up in his pockets. “I got evicted,” he says quietly. Mulder doesn't say anything, keeps his face neutral, but sympathy stirs up in his chest for his son. He's only seventeen, for God's sake; he should not be worried about evictions and rent and jobs. “I didn't know where else to go,” Jackson adds.

“You're welcome here,” Mulder says softly. “You were always welcome here.”

Jackson looks at the ground. “Well… I didn't want to come because I didn't want to, like, put you guys in danger. But they haven't come after me in a while.”

“No,” says Mulder. The smoker is dead, Skinner has recovered, he hopes that Scully and the baby will be safe. And his son. He will do anything to protect his son. “No, it seems safe now.”

Jackson ducks his head, avoiding his his eyes. Mulder reaches out and touches his son’s shoulder.

On the couch, Scully begins to stir. “Jackson?” she mumbles, hand brushing her belly.

“Yeah, it's me,” Jackson says, looking up at her. “Hi, Dana. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” she says sleepily.

“How's the kid?”

“Active.” Scully stretches, sitting up on the couch, and smiles a little at both of them.

“I think I'm going to be staying with you guys for a while,” Jackson says carefully. “If that's… okay.”

Scully exchanges a brief look with Mulder, her smile widening a little. “Of course. Of course it's okay.”

\---

Things don't change, not too terribly much. Jackson still disappears a lot during the day, for days at a time, even. They argue with him a little about it; Scully tries to insist that if he is staying with them, he has to let them know if he is leaving and he cannot disappear for days at a time. It doesn't work. She senses that they have very little parental power over him, at this point, that he doesn't actually give a shit what they'll do to discipline him because he's faced much, much worse than getting grounded. She feels like she should be grateful that he comes home at all.

Jackson doesn't always stay at home, but he eats dinner with them a lot and walks the dog even more. He helps Mulder put together a crib and paint the room down the hall, plasters glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Scully is trying to convince him to go back to high school the next school year, and he actually seems kind of interested. “English and history kind of sucks,” he admits one night. “But I did like science. A lot.”

“Well, I'd say it's more than worth it for several reasons,” Scully says. “We can look into it next spring, if you want.”

Jackson nods. _Like mother, like son,_ Mulder mouths, and Scully hides a smile behind her napkin.

Jackson disappears again the week before Christmas, a cold and snowy December week. Scully is trying to get used to their teenage son moving in and out of their lives sporadically, and she thinks she is getting close to acceptance, but it stings a bit, the week before Christmas. “He'll be back,” Mulder mumbles into her hair when they are wrapped up in blankets on the couch on the freezing first day of winter.

“I know,” she says. “At least I like to think that I know.” She and Jackson have been sharing books, discussing science, doing what she hopes is bonding. She hopes that this doesn't fall apart. She selfishly wants to spend Christmas with her son.

“He will.” He kisses the top of her head. “He knows you love him. And he won't go anywhere else because he knows he's guaranteed to be fed by us.”

Scully chuckles softly. She watches the window where the snow is falling and thinks of the first Christmas she spent with William. “It'll be easier this second time around,” she says quietly. “Won't it?”

“I hope so,” he says, just as quietly. “I do.”

Jackson shows up late on Christmas Eve with snow in his hair and the explanation of going to visit his parents. His parents’ graves. He looks a little forlorn, shaking with cold on the front step, and Scully wants to hug him.

He has a plastic gift bag for them crumpled in his hands. Inside are two snowglobes. One of Virginia Beach, one of Bigfoot. “Since, you know,” he says. “From before. I thought you might like it.”

Tears welling at the back of her throat, Scully puts the globe down and wraps her arms around her son. “I'm so glad you came back for Christmas, Jackson,” she says into his shoulder.

She's ready to let go and give him space, but she finds that he is clinging to her with a desperation she hasn't felt since the day she let him go. “Merry Christmas, Dana,” he mumbles, before letting go.

He disappears again the day after Christmas, but Scully thinks she understands. Memories of her mother and father and sister and Emily overwhelm her every year at this time, and it is the same with Mulder; she can't imagine what it's like for Jackson. She can understand why she wants to get some distance. And this time, she really believes he’ll be back.

\---

Jackson hasn't been home in weeks when they bring the baby home. She's honestly kind of relieved that he hasn't, because she doesn't know how much he wants to be a part of this. She referred to him as the baby's brother only once— _Your brother is sleeping right down the hall_ , she'd whispered once, when no one was nearby to hear, _maybe you'll get to meet him when you're born_ —but never to Mulder or Jackson. They rarely bring up the baby around Jackson. He's always the one to ask first, when it is discussed.

He isn't home when they come back with the baby, sleeping in the carrier while she tries to stuff her fist into her mouth. Scully is relieved, if only because she wants to dodge the awkwardness, but at the same time, she misses him. She's half grown used to his presence, hovering around the kitchen and eating half their food or digging around in Mulder's office or reading and rereading Malcolm X biographies on the couch with Daggoo sleeping in his lap. _He'll be back,_ she reminds herself. _He'll be back._ He'll be back soon and he can meet the baby.

The baby. They are new parents again and they are entirely too old for this. Mulder is in love with the baby. He didn't leave their side in the hospital, either of theirs. While Scully slept in the hospital, exhausted, he had crept to the nursery to look at their daughter through the window. “I didn't want to leave her alone,” he'd said later. “I didn't want to leave either of you alone. Scully, she's so _small_.”

She doesn't look much like William did, Scully notes, and the thought doesn't hurt as much as it once would have. She has hair, for one, dark downy hair, and big blue eyes that remind Scully of Emily or of William as a child before his eyes turned dark. Scully thinks she looks like the old black and white pictures she’s seen of her mother as an infant, but Mulder is insisting she looks like Samantha. She is smaller than William was, kicking at the blanket Mulder wrapped her in with little socked feet. “She's going to be a fighter,” Mulder had said, cradling her close at Scully's bedside. “Like her mother.”

Mulder is asleep on the couch and so is the baby, lying on her back in the little bassinet. Scully is exhausted, tempted to go to sleep as well, but she suspects that the baby will have her up within the hour, so she opts for a cup of tea instead. Mulder bought her out a supply of that tea that she loves when it became clear that she wasn't going to be having any coffee for a while, and she has a couple months worth left. She plans to savor it all.

She finishes making her tea and re-enters the living room. She is startled, but not surprised, to find Jackson standing there, shoes muddy and ripped flannel shirt. He's standing awkwardly near the bassinet, but the baby hasn't woken. Neither has Mulder.

“Hi, Dana,” Jackson says softly, but his eyes are on the baby. “Kid's here, huh?”

Scully smiles a little. It's cathartic to see her kids together like this, standing in the same area. Strange, but cathartic. “Hi, Jackson,” she says. “Yeah, she's here.”

Jackson gulps, sits in the chair across from the bassinet. “And you're okay?” he asks, looking up at her. His eyes are dark and soft in a way that reminds her of his father.

“Yes, I'm okay.” She sits on the other side of the bassinet, leans over the crib to check. The baby is awake, her eyes bright and sleepy as she blinks. She's the quietest baby Scully has ever seen, the calmest, and Scully is grateful for that. She smiles, touching the baby’s stomach. As tiring as the next eighteen years are going to be, she can't help but love her daughter with everything in her.

“I knew you were,” Jackson says in a rush. “At least I thought I did. I could… feel you… and I could kind of feel the kid, too… but I wanted to be sure. I wasn't sure.”

“I'm okay,” says Scully softly. “She's okay, too.”

Jackson leans over the crib. The baby blinks up at him with huge eyes, curling and uncurling her little fists. “Do you want to hold her?” Scully asks carefully.

Jackson looks very briefly terrified, but he nods cautiously. Scully leans down and scoops up the baby, a warm weight against her, sets her down in the circle of Jackson's arms. He is stiff and frozen, staring down at the baby like she's going to break. “I'm not very good with kids,” he says as Scully shows him how to cradle the head. He looks nervous, cupping her head with an overlarge hand. “My mom's friend had a kid a year ago, and she made me hold him, but he screamed the entire time I held him. I don't think kids like me.”

The baby yawns, a little smacking sound, her eyes half-closed. “I think she likes you,” Scully says in her reserved-for-babies voice, and resists the urge to add, _Your sister. Your sister likes you._

“Hmm.” Jackson is watching the baby. Scully hears the flicker of a word in Jackson's voice at the back of her mind, somehow silent— _Hi_ —and the baby's eyes slide closed contentedly. She thinks she must have heard him.

“She's cute,” Jackson says, handing her back to Scully. “I’m glad she got here safe.”

“Me, too,” Scully whispers. She brushes a finger over the baby's soft cheek before setting her back down in the crib. Her daughter, her son, right here. She almost can't believe it.

“You, uh.” Jackson clears his throat, knee bobbing up and down. “You didn't give me up for adoption until a while after I was born.”

Tears blur in Scully's eyes; it still hurts to bring it up, even after all these years, after seeing him again and getting to know him. She can still remember when he was this small, when she thought they had such a long time left. She strokes the baby's stomach, says, “Yeah,” raspily.

“So when I was… a baby… I lived with you,” says Jackson. He reaches out and touches the baby's downy head with the tip of one finger. “You took care of me.”

“Yes,” Scully says, reaching up to wipe her eyes.

“What was that like?”

Scully looks up from the baby at her son, her nearly grown son, sitting across from her with a question in his eyes. They told him they gave him up to keep him safe, but she has never told him more than that. How scared she was, how she kept him in the same room with her for a month after he was kidnapped. How much she missed him when she gave him away, how she didn't get out of bed for a week. How much she's missed him throughout his entire life. She told him in the morgue, but she didn't say nearly enough. If there is a way to tell someone how much you love them, then she wants to find a way to tell William. He told her that he knew that she loves him, but she wants him to understand how much. He is asking right now, in a way.

Scully tells him.


End file.
